Mistake
by XoX-queen-bee-XoX
Summary: One shot. Taylor thinks she's got it all sorted out. Only, after two weeks on the island, things between her and Jackson start to change, and she realises maybe she's got a bit of reassessing to do.


**So, I don't know where this came from, but I was watching flight 29 down, and thought, man it's so wrong that Jackson and Taylor aren't together. And I sort of just felt like I had to write it. I'm such a Jaylor fanatic :P**

**So enjoy. Review if you want. That might be nice.**

Taylor stretched her legs out, leaning back on her elbows and tilting her face up to the sun. It was hot today. It was hot every day. Perfect tanning weather, even if she was on this Godforsaken island. It was one of the few benefits of being involved in a life threatening plane crash; having beautifully bronzed legs. That and getting infinite amounts of time with Daley. _Not_. Daley might have gotten _better_ since they arrived on the island, but she was still a ways off bearable.

Speak of the devil. Right as Taylor though this, a shadow loomed over her, blocking her sun. She pushed her sunglasses up and squinted up at the red head standing over her.

"Good to see you're working, as usual," Daley said sarcastically. Taylor rolled her eyes. Couldn't she get five minutes of peace? All she wanted was a bit of time to herself to tan. After all, what was the point of all this beautiful sun if she wasn't going to get to use it?

"I was working actually," Taylor answered, "I was... thinking of ways to make getting water easier."

"Oh yeah?" Daley raised an eyebrow sarcastically.

"_Yeah_," Taylor resisted the urge to pull a face, "God, I mean, it's not like I'd just sit here doing nothing. I can't believe you think I would do that Daley."

"Right..." the other girl rolled her eyes, making no attempt to hide the gesture. "Well, do you want to come and give me a hand with the shelter?" Without waiting for an answer Daley turned and started to walk away across the sand.

"... Not really," Taylor muttered under her breath, just loud enough for the other girl to hear, but she climbed to her feet and followed after anyway, because she couldn't be bothered with the drama Daley would make if she didn't. After two weeks with the girl, Taylor was starting to discover that maybe she wasn't the only one who knew how to get her own way.

* * *

"Hold this," Daley held out a long piece of wood to Taylor, who took it reluctantly. She must have been working on the shelter for a least an hour, and she was starting to get really sick of it.

"Gladly," Taylor pouted.

"C'mon Taylor," Daley implored, "I'm not asking you to shoot yourself, I just want a little help. It'd be really nice for everyone if you could stop being so lazy all the time."

"I'm not lazy!" she protested.

"No, of course not."

"You don't have to be mean Daley, I came and helped you after all. I didn't have to you know!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't have to build a shelter at all, but I'm doing that."

"Because you want one."

"Well so do you!"

"Yeah, but I didn't want to _build_ it."

"So who did you think was going to build it?"

"I figured you would do it," Taylor answered, as though it should have been obvious. Daley groaned and put a hand to her forehead.

"You're unbelievable sometimes Taylor."

Taylor opened her mouth to answer, but something stopped her. It wasn't a mental block or anything, or a voice that told her not to be mean to Daley. It was the freezing cold water that had just been poured right over her head.

She screamed, as the ice cold liquid covered her hair, and then her bare back, cascading right down the backs of her legs to pool on the ground. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought that maybe, putting a shirt on before she came up here might not have been such a bad idea. This thought was a little overwhelmed though, by the intense anger she felt welling up inside her.

She turned, wiping the water from her eyes, to find Eric standing behind her laughing hysterically.

"That was priceless, you should have heard... your..." Eric's smile started to fade slightly as he caught sight of Taylor's face, "Your... you're going to kill me aren't you?"

He started to back away slowly, watching Taylor carefully for any reaction. Her eyes narrowed into a glare. Hands clenching into fists.

"Eric!" she screamed, then and with a small yelp, he turned and sprinted full speed away from her.

"I'm going to murder you, you come back here," she gave chase, dropping the pieces of wood on the ground as she tailed him through the clearing. She had just followed him into the tall trees the surrounded them, when she ran smack bang into something. Or rather someone.

"Woah," Jackson caught her elbows, stopping her from falling over. He looked down at her bemusedly. "What are you doing?"

"I was, um, I... was... huh?" Taylor trailed off when she looked downwards. Down to where her hands were pressed against Jackson's bare chest, because he didn't seem to be wearing a shirt. She blinked a few times. Well, who would have guessed that Jackson would have such a nice chest? It was all, tanned and- wow. Hold on a second, Taylor mentally scolded herself. This was Jackson she was talking about. As in Jackson, who was sort of maybe a little bit Melissa's Jackson. Which was kind of gross, but still. She should _not_ be thinking about Jackson's chest. Even if it was perfectly defined and warm and smooth and- Okay. Enough.

"I was looking for Eric," she pulled away from him so they weren't touching any more, and felt the cool, late afternoon air rush in to fill the places his body was no longer touching.

"Really? Is that how you look for people now?" Jackson gave one of his half grins, which for some majorly strange, unknown reason, affected Taylor a little more than it usually did. Was it just her, or was her heart beating a little harder than it should have been? But that must be because she had been running. That was it. It was hardly because of Jackson. It had absolutely nothing to do with the way his eyes had drifted away from her face momentarily to glance over her dripping wet bikini clad body. Not in a gross, Eric kind of way though. With Jackson it just seemed a little like something totally normal.

"Yeah." Nice answer Taylor, real smooth, she mentally cursed. Way to look even more stupid than he already thinks you are.

"Right. Well I'll let you get back to that then," he picked up some things of the ground, which he must have dropped in order to catch her, Taylor realised, then with a small nod, he brushed casually past her. Taylor ignored the way her breath caught in her throat when his shoulder touched hers. Something which was definitely an accident, she told herself sternly. It wasn't as though he had touched her on purpose... was it? The trees _were_ quite far apart. If he really wanted to, he probably could have made it around her without the shoulder contact.

God, what was wrong with her today? Who cared if Jackson touched her shoulder? Why did she need to spend the next hour stewing over it, like he had proposed or something? This was messed up, in a big way.

"Taylor!" Taylor spun around to find Daley staring at with her hands on her hips, "Would you get back over here and help, _please_?"

Taylor rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I was just going to," she snapped, flouncing over to where the red head had stopped staring at her and was attempting to fasten a long piece of wood to what Taylor assumed was a wall.

She reached up to help Daley, and a sharp pain ran through the tip of her finger. She yelped and snatched her hand back, staring at the small splinter of wood which stuck out of her finger.

"_Ow_," she whimpered, gaining the other girls attention for all of two seconds.

"What's wrong?"

"I've got a splinter," Taylor pouted, holding her hand to her chest protectively. Daley raised an eyebrow, turning back to the shelter.

"Sometimes, Taylor-"

"I'm unbelievable, I _know_," Taylor scowled, letting go of her hand and gingerly reaching back up to hold the plank of wood in place.

"Stupid wood," she muttered under her breath, "Stupid shelter, stupid Eric, stupid Daley-"

"What was that?"

Taylor scowled a little deeper. "Nothing."

* * *

The sun had just set when Jackson leaned against the tree, letting the exhaustion he was feeling get the better of him for a few seconds. It had been quite a day, lugging water and trees and God knows what else back and forth from camp. This whole building business was harder work than he had thought. It was harder than any of them had thought, but at least they were trying their best. Or most of them were at least. Eric and Taylor could probably be excluded from that list.

He thought back to the image of Taylor running around the woods screaming her head off, because of Eric. Neither of them seemed to quite grasp the gravity of the situation they found themselves in. The way Taylor was acting was hardly common behaviour for a desert island castaway. It would have been nice if she took things a bit more seriously. Not that he minded her running around half naked, soaking wet. Wait a second, he didn't mind what? He had definitely not meant to think that.

He had always thought Taylor was hot. He had never been attracted to her though. He had liked her, but not really in that way. Or at least, not that much. Until today that was. Today, when she ran into him, she just looked so... Taylorish. God, that was wonderful, he was making up words now. That sounded more like something she would do. Maybe if he stayed on this island with her long enough he would turn into her. That sounded like a great idea.

Not that there was anything wrong with her. Except for the obvious, she had a lot of good qualities. She was pretty and honest and cared about others... sometimes. And she was full of surprises, usually in a good way. And she had the most beautiful smile. The kind of smile that lit up a room. The kind of smile that made you want to grab her and just kiss her senseless. Not that he wanted to do that. At least, not that much.

"Jackson," Melissa was making her way through the now cold sand to him.

"Hey,"

"Are you going to come to dinner?" she stood a couple of feet away from him, looking down expectantly, her head tilted to the side in an oddly Taylor like fashion, although the expression didn't look quite as dim on Melissa's face.

"Yeah, sure." He rose to his feet, dusting the slightly damp sand of the back of his pants.

"What were you doing?" she asked, turning and walking beside him as they made their way back to camp.

"Just..." what was he doing? Thinking about Taylor? That'd be a good thing to tell Mel, if he wanted her to become depressed. "Wanted some time to myself."

"Oh." She looked a little hurt, but he couldn't work out why. It wasn't as though it was her he was trying to get away from. Just the constant drama that seemed to surround the group of people he was with. "I hope I didn't interrupt."

"Course not," he grinned at her. Mel was a great girl, he thought, dropping his gaze, but still glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. She was nice and thoughtful and smart and selfless. At one point he had thought maybe there might have been something between them. The thing was, that was before... well, honestly, he didn't really know what it was before, but something had changed, and for some reason, he wasn't really that into Mel anymore. Not like that anyway. Maybe it was because he'd just spent the last couple of weeks living with her. Maybe he was sick of her. But somehow he doubted that, especially since he'd lived with Taylor too and...

"Yo chief," Eric was sitting on the ground in front of the fire, his back resting against one of the logs that was meant to serve as a seat, "Though you weren't coming. I was gonna eat your fish for you. It's so good." The sarcasm wasn't hard to catch.

"You cook it then Eric, if you're so talented," Daley glowered, shoving a chunk of the overcooked seafood into her mouth and chewing angrily on it.

"There's no way I'm eating anything that Eric cooks," Nathan looked alarmed, and Taylor nodded in agreement.

"I wouldn't eat _salad_ if Eric had cooked it," Lex added, poking at his fish a little worriedly.

"You don't cook salad, brainiac," Eric told him.

"Exactly," Lex answered pulling a face as he put a bit of the fish in his mouth. Taylor giggled. Jackson raised an eyebrow and took a seat in the space near him between her and Nathan.

The conversation didn't stop once, even when people were chewing on various bits of fruit, because apparently no one had any qualms about talking with their mouth full. It was light hearted banter, which Jackson got sick of pretty quickly. His eyes started to drift around the circle. They passed over Daley, who was arguing animatedly with Nathan about something that Jackson wasn't actually listening to. Melissa was talking to Eric, who was looking decidedly disinterested, and Lex was bouncing up and down on his seat trying to get a word in over Daley. Jackson's gave finally came to rest on the young blonde girl sitting next to him.

The firelight flickered on her face, turning her usually golden skin a darker shade of bronze. Her hair practically glittered in the light, falling in a long wave down her back. She was honestly unnaturally hot, Jackson decided, taking in the slight purse of her lips as she looked into the fire. He didn't realise he was staring until she looked back at him. Their eyes met for a few seconds, and then Taylor looked back to the fire, her eyes wide. She glanced back, and Jackson realised he was still staring but he still couldn't seem to look away.

"What?" she asked, finally, looking back at him a little uncertainly.

"Nothing," he answered, way too quickly. "Nothing."

"You stare at nothing a lot don't you Jackson," when he looked back, Taylor was smiling. It was her gorgeous smile. The really hot one that she had done earlier that day when she'd crashed into him.

"Yeah," he answered, a little numbly, kind of unsure of what his mouth was doing. That fire was really hot. It was making him a little uncomfortable.

"_Okay then_..." Taylor trailed off, raising her eyebrows and looking down at the ground.

"I mean, no. It was an accident. Sorry." Smooth. He was on a roll tonight. It was probably because he was sick. He felt a little sick. His stomach kept turning over every time he and Taylor made eye contact, and he was a little dizzy. He must have a fever or something.

"Right," she looked back up at him and his stomach did that back flipping thing again. Okay, so she was pretty, he got it, there was no need for his body to react like a... like a _girl_. This was utterly ridiculous. He tore his gaze away from her and stared fixedly across the circle, at the darkened tress around them, resolving firmly not to look at Taylor again. For that night anyway.

* * *

Through the thin walls of the tent, Taylor could feel the warm night air caressing her shoulders. Her sleeping bag was pushed down to her hips and she was still too warm, so she took it off altogether and lay down on the hard floor dolefully. She couldn't keep her mind off him. No matter how tightly she shut her eyes, or how hard she tried to focus on something else, Jackson wouldn't get out of her head.

It wasn't that she wanted to think about Jackson. It wasn't that she didn't want to think about him either. It was just that she didn't want to think about him like _that_, because _that_ was what she would classify as fantasizing. If anyone else was doing it anyway. As it was, she had decided to call it pondering, because that didn't sound so bad. Saying she was fantasizing about Jackson was gross. Or at least, she thought she thought it was gross. The thing was, she couldn't seem to stop herself from doing it, no matter what she told herself.

The images of Jackson, in the same shirtless state he had been in earlier that day, coming into her tent, telling her how he'd been thinking about her all day, telling her all the things he wanted to do to her, _doing_ all the things he wanted to do to her. Well, that wasn't _exactly_ fantasizing was it? It was just... well... okay, maybe it was fantasizing. But what could she do about it? It was the heat, it wasn't actually her. She must have heatstroke or something. That was it. Too much sun. She needed to cut down on the tanning.

Taylor sighed once more. She needed to get these images out of her head somehow, otherwise she was never going to get to sleep. Maybe if she went outside for a bit, things would calm down a little. Climbing silently as she could to her feet, she made her way out of the small space and into the open air of the night. She found her feet carrying her inadvertently down to the beach. It was deserted when she got there, because everyone else was still asleep in bed. She sat down on the cool sand- a nice contrast to the heat in the air- and leaning back on her elbows, shut her eyes and allowed her mind to drift.

Jacksons face popped immediately into her mind, and, now that she was alone, rather than suppressing it, she decided to let the scene play out and see what happened.

In her mind, she was back in the tent, tossing and turning when the flap of the tent opened. She knew it was Jackson before he spoke, but nonetheless, when he said her name, small surprised chills ran down her spine.

She didn't say anything to him as he entered the tent, just watched as he made his way closer to her- not that it was far to go. The heat radiating off his body made her shiver, a little ironically, she thought. But this was her dream. It could be as ironic as she wanted.

Jackson lay down behind her, his body moulding to the curves of her back, his hand trailing over her hip. She stomach knotted tensely. Considering this wasn't actually happening, it should definitely not feel that good. This was kind of creepy, Taylor decided; lying on the beach dreaming about Jackson. But then dream Jackson kissed her neck and she got a little distracted from her ordinary train of thought. His lips were soft on her skin, moving upwards, 'til they were pressed against her jaw. Realising he couldn't comfortably get any closer to her mouth, dream Taylor rolled over and waited expectantly for the touch of Jackson's lips. She felt dizzy when it finally came, the knots in her stomach turning into butterflies. His mouth moved eagerly against hers, his hand coming up to rest on her cheek. Why exactly dream Jackson was so polite was a little beyond her, but Taylor didn't mind it. As long as he was kissing her, Taylor didn't really mind anything.

Dream Taylor sighed breathily, and then, when Jackson's other hand came up to caress the bare skin on her hip, she groaned.

"Jackson," Taylor didn't realise she had said it out loud until someone answered.

"Taylor."

Taylor's eyes snapped open sharply. Oh God. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all, not at all. A way too familiar silhouette stood a couple of meters away from her

"Mm," Taylor squeaked. He had heard that hadn't he? Oh God, this was too weird. Jackson had just heard her moaning about him in her totally creepy stalker fantasies.

"Couldn't sleep?"

No, I was too busy thinking about weird imaginary sex scenes with you, Taylor thought. "Nope," Taylor answered. He had heard, right? Wasn't he going to ask her about it? He was going to think she was such a freak.

"Neither," he got an odd look on his face as he sat down next to her, staring out at the water, which was lapping lazily at the shore. Taylor glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Was he honestly not going to say anything? If she was him she would have either been totally freaked out, or be making fun of herself. Apparently he wasn't doing either. Or maybe he was just better at hiding his horror than she was.

Just then he looked back at her and caught her eye. They both looked away quickly, those stupid butterflies attacking Taylor's stomach again, despite herself. Slowly, trying to be subtle, she looked back at him. He was looking at her again, out of the corner of his eye, as though maybe he was trying to be subtle too.

"Hey," she murmured, for absolutely no reason, then looked back down at the ground.

"Hey," he answered, in this low, slightly gruff voice. Taylor didn't like the way that voice effected her heart rhythm. Was it totally messed up that the sound of him talking like that kind of made her want to jump on him?

"What?" Jackson was definitely look at her this time, his eyes wide. Oh _God_. She had said that out loud hadn't she? Ew, she totally just told Jackson she wanted to jump on him. He was going to think she was such a freak.

"Damn. I said that out loud didn't I?" Taylor sighed, trying not to turn the colour of a beetroot.

"I, um..." he was staring at her, and Taylor figured he must be totally grossed out, until she caught the look in his eye properly. It didn't really look grossed out. It looked a little... wild. Like some crazy animalistic thing, which was making the already warm air seem a lot thicker. She swallowed, even though her throat was so constricted she was surprised she managed to do even that.

"Yeah," he said finally, his gaze never leaving her face. For some reason, Taylor felt this sudden urge to do what she had just said. An urge which she was fighting surprisingly hard to suppress. And maybe it was just her, but it looked like Jackson was having the same problem.

"Jackson?"

"Yeah?" his voice was a little strained.

"Are we gonna kiss soon?"

Next thing Taylor knew, Jackson's lips were on hers again, only this time it felt a thousand times better than the Jackson in her dreams. His lips were warm and firm and definitely there. That wasn't the only thing that was different though. Unlike the kiss in her dreams, this was urgent, hungry, desperate, like it had been drawn out too long and now they had to have each other. Taylor's hands wound into the hair at the nape of Jackson's neck, pulling him closer into her, his lips crushed even harder against hers.

Where exactly this need for Jackson had come from Taylor had no idea, but what she did know was that there was no way she could ignore it, and even if she could have, she didn't want to. She just wanted to melt into Jackson, because the idea of being apart seemed way too wrong.

Jackson's hands ran over Taylor's shoulders, and down the long line of her back, finally coming to rest on her hips, where he could pull her against him more forcefully. Their upper bodies pressed against each other, they began to sink backwards into the sand, Jackson's bodyweight sandwiching Taylor between him and the ground. Ever so slowly, Taylor felt one of the hands at her hip begin to inch upwards, over the heated skin of her stomach and she shivered once more.

She let her hands drift down the long, lean contours of his back, feeling the muscle contract slightly as he tensed. Jackson's tongue licked over her bottom lip, and Taylor opened her mouth eagerly. His hand continued to slide upwards, over her ribs and her heart beat out a fervent rhythm in her chest. His touch was rough, in a hardened, working way, which only made his hands that much nicer, as his tongue moved expertly around her mouth, drawing small sighs from her.

When Jackson's hand reached her bra, Taylor groaned in advertently, her hands balling into fist in the back of Jackson's shirt. When two of his fingers dipped inside it, she had to break away from his mouth to moan a little louder, because she felt like if she kept it in she might just explode. His lips drifted down to her neck.

"Jackson," she was breathing heavily when she spoke, "Jackson, wait."

She felt the boy's lips slowly lift from where they had been sucking on her throat, and his hand sliding down from under her shirt a little reluctantly. His breathing was only a little steadier than hers.

"We shouldn't, be doing this," she breathed, wishing that she sounded more like she meant it, and at the same time glad that she didn't.

"Yeah. I know," he didn't move, and Taylor lay back flat, letting her head rest on the sand, staring blankly up at the sky. It took her a couple of seconds to get her breathing controlled enough to keep talking.

"You should probably get off," she told him, a little flatly. She half hoped he would ignore her. That he would roll his eyes, make some cool, Jackson like comment and then start kissing her again. She wouldn't stop him if he did.

"Right," he pushed himself up, into a sitting position, shuffling a little further away from her. There was silence for a couple of seconds. Jackson sighed, as Taylor slowly sat up to face him.

"Sorry," he muttered, running a hand through his hair distractedly.

"Don't be," Taylor answered, then realised how that sounded. "I mean, like, it wasn't your fault. I was the one who said... well, you know."

"Right," he repeated, glancing up at Taylor and then looking back the sand.

"Maybe we should..." Taylor wasn't sure if she wanted to finish that sentence. 'Forget about it,' she was going to say. But did she want to do that? Deep down, did she really think that she should forget about the kiss? Could she even forget about that? Somehow, she kind of doubted it.

"That was a mistake," Jackson cut off her thinking. "We should forget it happened."

It wasn't a question. It was a definite, certain, statement. Taylor felt something she hadn't known was there crashing inside her chest. Why did those words make her want to cry? She should be happy, she didn't want Jackson. Well, maybe that wasn't true, but she didn't particularly want to want Jackson. Forgetting about the kiss seemed like a good option.

But was that really all it was? Just a kiss? It had seemed like maybe it was going to go further. It _had_ gone further. Until... Until she had stopped it. Because this was wrong. And weird. And kind of scary. She didn't want to feel like this about Jackson. She didn't want to feel like this about anyone. That was certain.

Taylor sighed. "Forget about it. Right. Totally." Something in her chest tightened a little and she felt a lump rising in her throat.

"I'm gonna go back to bed then," she told him hurriedly, jumping to her feet, and trying not to race as she turned and walked away.

"Taylor-" he sounded apologetic. Like maybe he had heard the tone in her voice and thought she was upset or something. Which would be totally wrong, because she wasn't. She didn't even care. It was just the stupid wind making her eyes start to water.

"I'm really tired," she cut him off. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

With that she turned on her heel and made a break for it, trying not to run as she made her way back up to the tents.

And that was the first time Taylor realised maybe what she felt for Jackson was a little more than an innocent crush.

* * *

**So how was that? I've never written a one shot before.**

**Actually, maybe it's not much of a one shot. I'll see what you guys think and if anyone wants me to keep going maybe I'll will.**

**We'll see aye?**

**Anyway thanks for reading.**

**cheers**

**Bee**


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